Dunhuang
Dunhuang is a county-level city in northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. Known as Sachu, it was a major stop on the ancient Silk Road and is best known for the nearby Mogao Caves.
Dunhuang is situated in an oasis containing Crescent Lake and Mingsha Shan, named after the sound of the wind whipping off the dunes, the singing sand phenomenon. Dunhuang commands a strategic position at the crossroads of the ancient Southern Silk Route and the main road leading from India via Lhasa to Mongolia and southern Siberia, and also controls the entrance to the narrow Hexi Corridor, which leads straight to the heart of the north Chinese plains and the ancient capitals of Chang'an and Luoyang.
Administratively, the county-level city of Dunhuang is part of the prefecture-level city of Jiuquan. Historically, the city and/or its surrounding region has also been known by the names Shazhou or Guazhou. In the modern era, the two alternative names have been assigned respectively to Shazhou zhen which serves as Dunhuang's seat of government, and to the neighboring Guazhou County.
Etymology
A number of derivations of the name Dunhuang have been suggested by scholars:- Giles 1892: 墩煌 'artificial mound, tumulus, beacon mound, square block of stone or wood' + 'blazing, bright, luminous'.
- Mathews 1944: 敦煌, now usually 'regard as important, to esteem; honest, sincere, generous' + 'a great blaze; luminous, glittering'.
- McGraw-Hill 1963: 敦煌 .
- Jáo and Demieville 1971 : 燉煌 'noise of burning' + 'great blaze' .
- Lín Yǚtáng 1972: 墩 'small mound ' or 燉 'to shimmer '.
- Kāngxī 1716: 燉煌, also 敦煌 .
- Mair 1977, Ptolemy's c. 150 Geography refers to Dunhuang as Greek Θροανα, possibly from Iranian Druvana meaning something like "fortress for tax collecting."
History
Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties
There is evidence of habitation in the area as early as 2,000 BC, possibly by people recorded as the Qiang in Chinese history. According to Zuo Zhuan and Book of the Later Han, the Dunhuang region was a part of the ancient Guazhou, which was known for its production of melons. Its name was also mentioned in relation to the homeland of the Yuezhi in the Records of the Grand Historian. Some have argued that this may refer to the unrelated toponym Dunhong – the archaeologist Lin Meicun has also suggested that Dunhuan may be a Chinese name for the Tukhara, a people widely believed to be a Central Asian offshoot of the Yuezhi.[Warring States period]
During the Warring States period, the inhabitants of Dunhuang included the Dayuezhi people, Wusun people, and Saizhong people. As Dayuezhi became stronger, it absorbed the Qiang tribes.[Han dynasty]
By the third century BC, the area became dominated by the Xiongnu, but came under Chinese rule during the Han dynasty after Emperor Wu defeated the Xiongnu in 121 BC.Dunhuang was one of the four frontier garrison towns established by the Emperor Wu after the defeat of the Xiongnu, and the Chinese built fortifications at Dunhuang and sent settlers there. The name Dunhuang, meaning "Blazing Beacon", refers to the beacons lit to warn of attacks by marauding nomadic tribes. Dunhuang Commandery was probably established shortly after 104 BC. Located in the western end of the Hexi Corridor near the historic junction of the Northern and Southern Silk Roads, Dunhuang was a town of military importance.
"The Great Wall was extended to Dunhuang, and a line of fortified beacon towers stretched westwards into the desert. By the second century AD, Dunhuang had a population of more than 76,000 and was a key supply base for caravans that passed through the city: those setting out for the arduous trek across the desert loaded up with water and food supplies, and others arriving from the west gratefully looked upon the mirage-like sight of Dunhuang's walls, which signified safety and comfort. Dunhuang prospered on the heavy flow of traffic. The first Buddhist caves in the Dunhuang area were hewn in 353."
[Sui dynasty] and [Tang dynasty]
During the Sui and Tang dynasties, it was the main stop of communication between ancient China and the rest of the world and a major hub of commerce of the Silk Road. Dunhuang was the intersection city of all three main Silk Routes during this time.From the West also came early Buddhist monks, who had arrived in China by the 1st century, and a sizable Buddhist community eventually developed in Dunhuang. The caves carved out by the monks, originally used for meditation, developed into a place of worship and pilgrimage called the Mogao Caves or "Caves of a Thousand Buddhas." Several Christian, Jewish, and Manichaean artifacts have also been found in the caves, testimony to the wide variety of people who made their way along the Silk Road. The Sogdians established large merchants colonies.
During the time of the Sixteen Kingdoms, Li Gao established Western Liang here in 400. In 405, the capital of the Western Liang was moved from Dunhuang to Jiuquan. In 421, Western Liang was conquered by Northern Liang.
Image:Dunhuang2.JPG|thumb|left|150px|Tang period Buddhist sutra fragment from Dunhuang
As a frontier town, Dunhuang was fought over and occupied at various times by non-Han people. After the fall of the Han dynasty, it came under the rule of various nomadic tribes, such as the Xiongnu during the Northern Liang and the Tuoba during Northern Wei. The Tibetan Empire occupied Dunhuang when Tang China became weakened considerably by the An Lushan Rebellion; and even though it was later returned to Tang rule, it was under quasi-autonomous rule by the local general Zhang Yichao, who expelled the Tibetans in 848. After the fall of Tang, Zhang's family formed the Kingdom of Golden Mountain in 910, but in 911, it came under the influence of the Uyghurs. The Zhangs were succeeded by the Cao family, who formed alliances with the Uyghurs and the Kingdom of Khotan.
[Song dynasty]
During the Song dynasty, Dunhuang fell outside the Chinese borders. In 1036 the Tanguts who founded the Western Xia dynasty captured Dunhuang. From the reconquest of 848 to about 1036, Dunhuang was a multicultural entrepot that contained one of the largest ethnic Sogdian communities in China following the An Lushan Rebellion. The Sogdians were Sinified to some extent and were bilingual in Chinese and Sogdian, and wrote their documents in Chinese characters, but horizontally from left to right instead of right to left in vertical lines, as Chinese was normally written at the time.[Yuan dynasty]
Dunhuang was conquered in 1227 by the Mongols, and became part of the Mongol Empire in the wake of Kublai Khan's conquest of China under the Yuan dynasty.[Ming dynasty]
During the Ming dynasty, China became a major sea power, conducting several voyages of exploration with sea routes for trade and cultural exchanges. Dunhuang went into a steep decline after the Chinese trade with the outside world became dominated by southern sea routes, and the Silk Road was officially abandoned during the Ming dynasty. It was occupied again by the Tibetans c. 1516, and also came under the influence of the Chagatai Khanate in the early sixteenth century.[Qing dynasty]
Dunhuang was retaken by China two centuries later c. 1715, during the Qing dynasty, and the present-day city of Dunhuang was established east of the ruined old city in 1725.[People's Republic of China]
In 1988, Dunhuang was elevated from county to county-level city status. On March 31, 1995, Turpan and Dunhuang became sister cities.Today, the site is an important tourist attraction and the subject of an ongoing archaeological project. A large number of manuscripts and artifacts retrieved at Dunhuang have been digitized and made publicly available via the International Dunhuang Project. The spreading Kumtag Desert, the result of long-standing overgrazing of the surrounding land, has reached the edges of the city.
In 2011 satellite images showing huge structures in the desert near Dunhuang surfaced online and caused a brief media stir.
Culture
Buddhist caves
A number of Buddhist cave sites are located in the Dunhuang area, the most important of these is the Mogao Caves, which is located southeast of Dunhuang. There are 735 caves in Mogao, and the caves in Mogao are particularly noted for their Buddhist art, as well as the hoard of manuscripts, the Dunhuang manuscripts, found hidden in a sealed-up cave. Many of these caves were covered with murals and contain many Buddhist statues. Discoveries continue to be found in the caves, including excerpts from a Christian Bible dating to the Yuan dynasty.Numerous smaller Buddhist cave sites are located in the region, including the Western Thousand Buddha Caves, the Eastern Thousands Buddha Caves, and the Five Temple site. The Yulin Caves are located further east in Guazhou County.
Other historical sites
- Crescent Lake and Singing Sand Dunes
- The Yumen Pass, built in 111 BC, located northwest of Dunhuang in the Gobi desert.
- The Yang Pass
- White Horse Pagoda
- Dunhuang Limes
Museums
- Dunhuang County Museum
Night market